Teachers’ Strike: Classes Cancelled For Second Day In A Row

Schools will be closed throughout the country on Thursday for a second day with only special education schools holding classes as normal as Israel’s Teachers Union continues its labor dispute.

All kindergartens, elementary schools and ulpan language classes will be canceled. Only special education schools will hold classes as normal.

Union head Yaffa Ben-David said the union have been negotiating with the finance officials for six months, but have not yet received even one concrete proposal.

Ben-David said “Today we see that the Finance Ministry has money, but it prefers to give it to summer camp operators rather than to the teaching staff who carry the education system on their shoulders.”

She was referring to the ministry’s plan to bypass the teachers’ strike and fund summer programs in educational institutions starting on Sunday. The summer programs are not under the auspices of the union.

Ben-David warned that the Finance Ministry was “exacerbating the crisis in the education system and accelerating the abandonment of teaching staff adding that the Finance Ministry broadcasts to the public and to teaching staff that there is no need for professional teaching staff who will be responsible for educating the future generation of Israel.

He called on Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman to sit with her and the education minister on Thursday to reach a solution.

A number of localities, including Jerusalem, Ashkelon, Modi’in, Efrat, Ma’aleh Adumim, Lod and Kiryat Shmona, among others, decided on Wednesday to begin operating kindergartens with teacher’s aides starting on Thursday.

The decision was made after an agreement was reached between the Finance Ministry and the Federation of Local Authorities to provide aides to work in place of the striking teachers.